Chapter xiv. of the fourth treatise of “The Banquet” complete. Translated by Elizabeth Price Sayers, and edited by Henry Morley.

SINCE, by their own argument, the Song has confuted them, and proved that Time is not requisite to Nobility, it proceeds immediately to confound their premises, since of their false arguments no rust remains in the mind which is disposed towards Truth; and this it does when it says, “It follows then from this.” Where it is to be known that if it is not possible for a peasant to become a Noble, or for a Noble son to be born of a humble father, as is advanced in their opinion, of two difficulties one must follow.

  The first is, that there can be no Nobility; the other is, that the World may have been always full of men, so that from one alone the Human Race cannot be descended; and this it is possible to prove.

  If Nobility is not generated afresh, and it has been stated many times that such is the basis of their opinion, the peasant man not being able to beget it in himself, or the humble father to pass it on to his son, the man always is the same as he was born; and such as the father was born, so is the son born; and so this process from one condition onwards is reached even by the first parent; for such as was the first father, that is, Adam, so must the whole Human Race be, because from him to the modern nations it will not be possible to find, according to that argument, any change whatever. Then, if Adam himself was Noble, we are all Noble; if he was vile, we are all vile or base; which is no other than to remove the distinction between these conditions, and thus it is to remove the conditions.

  And the Song states this, which follows from what is advanced, saying, “That all are high or base.” And if this is not so, then any nation is to be called Noble, and any is to be called vile, of necessity. Transmutation from vileness into Nobility being thus taken away, the Human Race must be descended from different ancestors, that is, some from Nobles, and some from vile persons, and so the Song says, “Or that in Time there never was Beginning to our race,” that is to say, one beginning; it does not say beginnings. And this is most false according to the Philosopher, according to our Faith, which cannot lie, according to the Law and ancient belief of the Gentiles. For although the Philosopher does not assert the succession from one first man, yet he would have one essential being to be in all men, which cannot possibly have different origins. And Plato would have that all men depend upon one idea alone, and not on more or many, which is to give them only one beginning. And undoubtedly Aristotle would laugh very loudly if he heard of two species to be made out of the Human Race, as of horses and asses; and (may Aristotle forgive me) one might call those men asses who think in this way. For according to our Faith (which is to be preserved in its entirety) it is most false, as Solomon makes evident where he draws a distinction between men and the brute animals, for he calls men “all the sons of Adam,” and this he does when he says: “Who knows if the spirits of the sons of Adam mount upwards, and if those of the beasts go downwards?” And it is false according to the Gentiles, let the testimony of Ovid in the first chapter of his “Metamorphoses” prove, where he treats of the constitution of the World according to the Pagan belief, or rather belief of the Gentiles, saying: “Man is born”—he did not say “Men”; he said, “Man is born,” or rather, “that the Artificer of all things made him from Divine seed, or that the new earth, but lately parted from the noble ether, retained seeds of the kindred Heaven, which, mingled with the water of the river, formed the son of Japhet into an image of the gods, who govern all.” Where evidently he asserts the first man to have been one alone; and therefore the song says, “But that I cannot hold,” that is, to the opinion that man had not one beginning; and the song subjoins, “Nor yet if Christians they.” And it says Christians, not Philosophers, or rather Gentiles, whose opinions also is adverse, because the Christian opinion is of greater force, and is the destroyer of all calumny, thanks to the supreme light of Heaven, which illuminates it.

  Then when I say, “Sound intellect reproves their words as false, and turns away,” I conclude this error to be confuted, and I say that it is time to open the eyes to the Truth; and this is expressed when I say, “And now I seek to tell, As it appears to me.” It is now evident to sound minds that the words of those men are vain, that is, without a crumb or particle of Truth; and I say sound not without cause. Our intellect may be said to be sound or unsound. And I say intellect for the noble part of our Soul, which it is possible to designate by the common word “Mind.” It may be called sound or healthy, when it is not obstructed in its action by sickness of mind or body, which is to know what things are, as Aristotle expresses it in the third chapter on the Soul.

  For, owing to the sickness of the Soul, I have seen three horrible infirmities in the minds of men.

  One is caused by natural vanity, for many men are so presumptuous that they believe they know everything, and, owing to this, they assert things to be facts which are not facts. Tullius especially execrates this vice in the first chapter of the “Offices,” and St. Thomas in his book against the Gentiles, saying: “There are many men, so presumptuous in their conceit, who believe that they can compass all things with their intellects, deeming all that appears to them to be true, and count as false that which does not appear to them.” Hence it arises that they never attain to any knowledge; believing themselves to be sufficiently learned, they never inquire, they never listen; they desire to be inquired of, and when a question is put, bad enough is their reply. Of those men Solomen speaks in Proverbs: “Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? There is more hope of a fool than of him.”

  Another infirmity of mind is caused by natural weakness or smallness, for many men are so vilely obstinate or stubborn that they cannot believe that it is possible either for them or for others to know things; and such men as these never of themselves seek knowledge, nor ever reason; for what other men say, they care not at all. And against these men Aristotle speaks in the first book of the “Ethics,” declaring those men to be insufficient or unsatisfactory hearers of Moral Philosophy. Those men always live, like beasts, a life of grossness, the despair of all learning.

  The third infirmity of mind is caused by the levity of nature; for many men are of such light fancy that in all their arguments they go astray, and even when they make a syllogism and have concluded, from that conclusion they fly off into another, and it seems to them most subtle argument. They start not from any true beginning, and truly they see nothing true in their imagination. Of those men the Philosopher says that it is not right to trouble about them, or to have business with them, saying, in the first book of “Physics,” that against him who denies the first postulate it is not right to dispute. And of such men as these are many idiots, who may not know their A B C, and who would wish to dispute in Geometry, in Astrology, and in the Science of Physics.

  Also through sickness or defect of body, it is possible for the Mind to be unsound or sick; even as through some primal defect at birth, as with those who are born fools, or through alteration in the brain, as with the madmen. And of this mental infirmity the Law speaks when it says: “In him who makes a Will or Testament, at the time when he makes the Will or Testament health of mind, not health of body, is required.”

  But to those intellects which from sickness of mind or body are not infirm, but are free, diligent, and whole in the light of Truth, I say it must be evident that the opinion of the people, which has been stated above, is vain, that is without any value whatever, worthless.

  Afterwards the Song subjoins that I thus judge them to be false and vain; and this it does when it says, “Sound intellect reproves their words as false, and turns away.” And afterwards I say that it is time to demonstrate or prove the Truth; and I say that it is now right to state what kind of thing true Nobility is, and how it is possible to know the man in whom it exists; and I speak of this where I say:—